More Mind Map Software -- Freeplane and Blumind

Freeplane is Open Source software. It makes wonderful mind maps to help you study.

(http://freeplane.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page)

Download Freeplane here.

Edraw Mind Map Freeware

Edraw Mind Map Freeware

The free version of Xmind is great software, but if you don't like Xmind, or it doesn't work on your computer, you can also try Edraw. Download it here:
http://www.edrawsoft.com/download-mindmap.php


This YouTube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=B4-fSg6rJNs) shows you how to use Edraw.

The computer voice sounds strange. Even for me it is hard to understand, but you can easily read the words on the screen.

Study Tools: Mind Maps

Mind mapping is a clever way to put your thoughts on a piece of paper. You can read more about mind mapping at Wikipedia. The Chinese Wikipedia article is rather short. The English Wikipedia article is better.

There are many free mind mapping programs. Choose one that works for you. Don't be afraid of a new computer program. If you practice enough times, you will become a computer wizard. People will ask you to be their teacher!

"Wizard: -- CC Robin Hutton, Flickr BY-NC-SA

Petit Papa Noël -- A French Christmas Song

[Updated 26 December, 2015]

Christmas is coming. This is a season when we should be aware of how much God has blessed us. We should always be grateful and remember to share our good fortune with other people.

This year, instead of only singing English Christmas songs, why not sing the most famous French Christmas song: Petit Papa Noël  On my linguistics blog I posted several different YouTube versions. Let's sing along!

cute-linguistics.blogspot.com/2011/12/petit-papa-noel-best-french-christmas.html

Please visit my linguistics blog and leave a comment. 

French songs are not really difficult. You can use your English to learn French, and learning French words can help you improve your English vocabulary.

There are many French words in Petit Papa Noël which are similar to English words (cognates are words which are similar because they came from the same place [like cousins] or borrowed words). Here are three stanzas from the song. Can you recognize the words which are similar to English?

1 C'est la belle nuit de Noël

2 La neige étend son manteau blanc

3 Et les yeux levés vers le ciel

4 À genoux, les petits enfants

5 Avant de fermer les paupières

6 Font une dernière prière.

belle: French = "beautiful," English = "a beautiful young woman"
nuit: Fr = "night", Eng ~nocturnal = "occurring at night [ADJ]"
Noël: Fr, Eng = Christmas
1 = Fr, C'est la belle nuit de Noël = Eng, "It is a lovely Christmas Eve"


étend: Fr ="spreads out", Eng extend = "stretch out, spread out"
manteau: Fr =coat, Eng ~mantle = "cloak"
blanc: Fr =white, Eng blank = "not written or printed on" 
2 = La neige étend son manteau blanc, Eng, Snow spreads its white coat

7 Petit papa Noël

8 Quand tu descendras du ciel

9 Avec des jouets par milliers

10 N'oublie pas mon petit soulier.

11 Mais avant de partir

12 Il faudra bien te couvrir

13 Dehors tu vas avoir si froid

14 C'est un peu à cause de moi.

Drinking in Europe

What do people drink in Europe? Here is a map of Europe's "Alcohol Belts:"

Red = WINE, brown = BEER, blue = VODKA (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons)

Speech Prep

The Six Minutes blog gives you excellent suggestions for preparing to make a speech. After you choose a topic, you should write an outline of your main points. Then you should write your FIRST draft.

After you have finished your first draft, please post it here so that we can critique your writing together.

French Food Tasting Session

On Tuesday, November 27th, there will be a French food tasting session in our Tourism class: charcuterie, fromage & patisserie. Please be sure to bring napkins, paper plates and paper to cover the tables. Also remember to wash your hands before class.  Drinks are up to you.

Eating French – A Linguistic Introduction for EFL Students

[Revised: 15 January, 2014]
 

France is famous for its delicacies. In fact, for French people, eating well is a science as well as an art. The five posts mentioned below are about different types of French food. Each post provides words that you should know if you travel to a French-speaking country. Smart tourists who are not rich don't spend lots of money on fancy restaurants. Instead, they go to French food shops. Here are the five types of food shops. 

These five language learning posts show you pictures of different French foods and use IPA (the International Phonetic Alphabet) to help you how to pronounce them correctly:

1-charcuteries, 2-fromageries, 3-boulangeries, 4-pâtisseries and 5-crêperies

These shops sell: 1-cooked meat, 2-cheese, 3-bread, 4-pastry and 5-crepes.

Remember: when traveling, the best way to enjoy good food while saving money is to eat what local people eat. If you're in a hurry or on a tight budget, supermarkets are more convenient and even cheaper than the specialized food shops mentioned above, but the quality and freshness are not the same.

If you want to try some street food, frites /frit/ (French fries) and croque-monsieur /kʁɔk məsjø/ (a French style grilled cheese sandwich with ham) are two popular choices:

Sensing Croque Monsieur, CC-BY Snowpea&Bokchoi, www DOT flickr DOT com SLASH photos SLASH 28531775@N06 SLASH 4666262530

Charcuterie: French-Style Prepared Meat Products

Saucisson sec: 640px-Salami_aka (CC-BY André Karwath).jpg

Fromage: French Cheese

Camembert, the most famous French cheese (CC-BY-SA, NJGJ)

Pâtisserie: French Pastry

Mille-Feuille (CC-BY-SA, Georges Seguin (Okki))

Baguettes and Croissants: French Bread and Bread-Like Snacks

611px-Mie_Baguette_de_tradition_France (CC-BY-SA DocteurCosmos).jpeg

Crêpes: French-style Thin Pancakes (Sweet or Savory)

(CC-BY-SA User, Wikipedia)

SSS: Start with Simple Stories

Reading lots and lots of easy stories is a great way to improve your English. This is called the SSS Method. This wonderful way to learn has been successfully used in Japan for many years. Choose fun, easy books to start with (graded readers, such as Oxford Bookworms). There are three rules to follow:

1) Don't use a dictionary to read everything (= don't stop to look up words). Just pay attention to the story!

2) If you see a new word, try to guess it. If you can't, just keep on reading. Enjoy the story!

3) After reading two or three pages, if the story is boring or too difficult, just get another book. Have fun!

Here's a book written in Japanese by 古川昭夫、河手真理子 and translated by高淑珍: 丟掉字典學英語. This book tells you what to do and how to do it. Buy it online or from a library. 

關於SSS（Start with Simple Stories）學習法：

請不要查字典, 看不懂的地方跳過去, 對不感興趣的書暫時擱下

/k/ Spelling Rules: Test

Test is here.

Presentations Midterm

Exam is here.

Pronunciation -- Spelling, Syllables & Stress

Test yourself HERE

Write Your "Obituary" 赴告、訃文

Most people don't like to think about dying, but it will happen to everyone one day. What will people say about you when you are gone?

"He had a beautiful, expensive car." "He liked to use FaceBook every day!"

Is this what you want? Or do you want people to say other things?

"She always told jokes and made other people feel happy" "Her noodles tasted very good" "When I was sick, he came to my house every day to take care of me" "She was a loyal friend" "His children were always polite"

Think carefully! Please write your "obituary" here.

"Playing" With Consonants and Vowels

[Linguistics Post]

Studying consonants and vowels? Check out two posts from my linguistics blog:

The University of Iowa's Flash-based explanations are excellent: http://cute-2011-linguistics.blogspot.tw/2011/09/consonants-place-manner-of-articulation.html

Another excellent site is Sammy, which shows you what all of the IPA consonant symbols mean: http://cute-2011-linguistics.blogspot.tw/2011/09/place-and-manner-of-articulation.html

In Chinese society, "play" is something that small children do. After you become a teenager, you are supposed to be "serious" and stop playing. This is a serious mistake. Playing (if done correctly) is an excellent way to learn. I hope that all of my students will PLAY with these two websites.

Below this screenshot is a video explaining how "play" makes you smart:

Screenshot from Stuart Brown's TED talk on the importance of play.

(EFL) Learn to Read English Better: Also Learn to Draw with DRAWSPACE.COM (Brenda Hoddinott)

Brenda Hoddinott is a very generous teacher and artist who runs a website at www.drawspace.com. On her website Brenda lets people download many many free PDFs. These PDFs will teach you how to draw. If you want to, you can also join art classes on this website.

There more than 200 FREE lessons you can download here

If English is not your own language, maybe some of the words and sentences in these PDFs are not easy. Copy some difficult sentences and paste them into Google Translate. Computer translation makes many mistakes, but Google can give you a little help.

Interesting facts about Central America & the Caribbean (geography and history)

觀光產業英文必看

If you interact with tourists from other countries, you should know something about their countries. Let's learn a little about Central America, Mexico and Cuba. What do you think of these countries? Which country do you find most interesting? Would you like to visit any of them? Why/Why not? Please leave comments at the bottom.

Where Is That Country? Geography Software

English is a wonderful tool for meeting people from abroad. Free geography software can help us learn what other countries look like (shape, size) and who their neighbors are.

Owl and Mouse Educational Software provide several such programs. They are easy to use and lots of fun. You can either play online or download the programs to play on your own computer. I prefer to download the software because sometimes the internet is down or it is very slow. If you put the software on a USB drive, you can play anywhere, even on a public computer.

Please download these 3 puzzles: Central America, the Middle East and Europe.
Play by yourself or (even better) play with your friends. Have fun!

There are several small countries here. Some of them are very special. Find out why.